Collusion with a Heretic
Collusion with a Heretic
The forest beyond the barrier, where pitch-black darkness had settled.
Between the stench of beast blood that stung the nose and the acrid smell of burning great trees, a stifling silence hung.
"......."
Before the horrific hypothesis he had deduced on his own, Erden stood frozen like a man struck by lightning.
Inflicting physical damage to the brain while simultaneously pouring in extreme regenerative power.
Within a contradictory loop where destruction and regeneration clashed infinitely, human reason and ego eventually could not endure and burned away completely, becoming a blank slate.
A reversal of thinking that turned the most sublime and sacred miracle into the most malicious and cruel tool of torture.
It was knowledge that went beyond blasphemy against God—knowledge that twisted the very laws of the world—a perfect heresy.
"Crazy... really, fucking crazy...."
Erden muttered absentmindedly and began gnawing on his own fingernails.
His dull eyes, which had paled and pissed themselves in front of the troll's club, were now being entangled with uncontrollable intellectual curiosity and sticky madness like bloodshot veins.
The pathological and fierce craving for unknown knowledge unique to a genius mage.
I silently sheathed my longsword dripping with blood, waiting patiently for that lunatic's emotions to reach their peak.
"But... fuck! What's the point of figuring it out?!"
Before long, Erden, who had been tearing at his tangled hair, kicked the ground in irritation.
"This is just a flimsy hypothesis I pulled out of my own head! To reverse-engineer and prove this blasphemous formula, I have to dissect and analyze every single piece of data—the process of the brainwaves breaking apart and the regeneration values—directly through 'Divine Power'!"
Erden shouted, his bloodshot eyes glaring at me.
"Where in this world is there a material for me to conduct such a horrible experiment?! It's been five years since the imperial leadership issued an edict recognizing mages as official combat power under the excuse of a power shortage, but those church bastards still treat us mages as nothing more than ominous heretics worse than bugs! Not even the shadow of a healing priest comes within a ten-meter radius of me!"
His metallic voice was steeped in profound frustration.
Right in front of him, a perfect, unknown world that had never been opened lay spread out, yet he lacked the single key to open that door—the despair of a genius.
"If I can't dissect and analyze Divine Power as I please! This crazy research is a completely impossible premise that can't even begin!"
As Erden huffed and punched the air, I asked in a dry, flat voice.
"Then, if I could perfectly control and provide that variable called 'Divine Power'."
At my emotionless question, Erden's thick eyebrows twitched.
"You're saying you can perfectly prove that crazy hypothesis you just blurted out, and even find a way to reverse-engineer it and restore the broken brain?"
"You're asking something obvious and fucking around!"
Erden snorted, his pride seemingly wounded.
"Do you know who I am? Even if the Academy shoved me into a corner of the training grounds calling me a heretic, my intelligence is something those arrogant professors don't dare deny! If you hand me the materials and the equations, I can rip out even the formulas shoved down God's throat without missing a single piece. I'm the one who's been dying to dissect the structure of that hypocritical, blind light!"
The rough answer that escaped his lips was nothing but arrogant certainty without a shred of hesitation.
That intellectual confidence. That alone was enough.
I coldly tapped my mental abacus.
Revealing this secret coiled deep within my heart to that bastard was an obvious risk.
But that lunatic was already perfectly hooked by the trap of forbidden knowledge, gasping with thirst for exploration.
A single sip of water given to one who feels the deepest thirst becomes the most perfect leash to bind them for life.
"But where in this world is there a crazy priest who would willingly hand over Divine Power and become a test subject for a mage like me?! Unless you drag in the head of a high-ranking church priest...!"
"Quiet."
I silently stepped forward, exactly half a step in front of Erden, who was snapping irritably.
"H-hey! What's with the sudden—!"
Pressed by my inorganic aura, Erden flinched and tried to step back.
But my hand was faster.
I grabbed his left shoulder, which was bleeding from a cut caused by a fragment that had flown up when the troll's club struck the ground earlier.
And without hesitation, I pulled up 'that power' settled deep in my lower dantian.
Oooong-.
The final moment of the previous cycle.
The lover who had saved the world and was being brutally shattered—she screamed like a beast, tore open her own chest, and forcibly shoved it into my heart.
The remnant of a miracle that had formed in my heart, created by her blind and sublime devotion that only wanted to save me.
Through my rough, calloused palm, still wet with the blood of a magical beast.
A dazzlingly brilliant and radiant pure white light poured out like a waterfall.
"...C-crazy?!"
Erden's dull eyes grew as wide as if they would pop out.
The light bursting from my palm wrapped Erden's body in warm and overwhelming warmth, literally 'erasing' the wound on his shoulder where blood had been flowing from the tear.
New flesh grew, leaving not a single scar—a horrifyingly perfect and miraculous healing.
It was not the crude magic of twisted mana.
It was a power on a completely different level from that disgusting imitation that the fake saint Clarice had arrogantly scattered in the banquet hall earlier.
An undeniable, pure and sublime level of true 'Divine Power'.
"U-uh, uhh...?"
Erden stared blankly at his now clean shoulder and my hand, which still had a shimmer of light around it, alternating between the two.
His genius brain circuits momentarily came to a complete halt.
The common sense he had built over a lifetime as a mage, the worldview he had explored by denying God—
all of it shattered into pieces before the miracle that had burst from the rough fingertips of a commoner swordsman who cut beast necks and gutted entrails.
"W-who the hell are you?!"
Coming to his senses, Erden jerked back from my hand as if struck by lightning, jumping like a startled animal.
His face was pale with shock and fear.
"How can a swordsman use Divine Power?! A secret heretic inquisitor from the Holy Imperial Office?! No, fuck! The Divine Power of a holy knight is specialized in physical enhancement and doesn't have the function to heal others this perfectly! This thick and pure healing power can only come from a high-ranking church priest... or no, unless it's at the level of a saint...!"
As Erden screamed as if about to faint and stumbled backward, I expressionlessly withdrew my hand.
The pure white light lingering at my fingertips faded into the night air.
How I came to possess this miracle was none of that bastard's business.
No, no one in this world should ever know about it.
Because this is the only trace left to me by my pitiful, brilliant lover, who became an idiot just for me.
"I ask the questions, tool."
With a low, dry voice, I mercilessly shut Erden's endlessly chattering mouth.
"...Ghk!"
Overwhelmed by my murderous aura and spirit, Erden swallowed his breath and froze in place.
"I have no need for the arrogant healing priests of the church or the light of that hypocritical fake saint. Because within this, lies the most perfect Divine Power."
I tapped near my heart and stared straight into Erden's trembling eyes.
"The moment you utter a single word to anyone about the fact that I wield Divine Power."
My cold gaze, flashing in the darkness, choked his throat as if strangling him.
"That fascinating forbidden research of yours will end forever. Along with that worthless life of yours."
A clear, merciless death threat.
Erden swallowed dry saliva and trembled like an aspen.
He wasn't stupid enough to ignore the warning of a mad dog that had just cleaved the head of a monstrous mutant troll in an instant.
But right after cracking the whip, I threw the sweetest and most poisonous apple that he could never refuse.
"But if you keep that loose mouth tightly shut."
I slightly raised the corners of my mouth, forming a cold, sinister smile.
"Until you find that blasphemous answer, I will willingly offer the Divine Power in my heart as your test subject."
"...!"
Erden's dull eyes shook violently as if an earthquake had struck.
Reverse-engineering the brain-destroying formula using Divine Power—a research that defied the laws of God.
And a heretical commoner swordsman wielding miracles who would volunteer to be the test subject for that horrific research.
This was the most blasphemous, most dangerous, and at the same time, a perfect demonic contract that a mage starving for knowledge could never refuse.
"K-kheuu...."
Erden, who had been silent, began to shake his shoulders grotesquely.
"Kheuheuheu, hahahahahaha!"
Soon, with both hands covering his face, he burst into mad laughter that seemed to shake the night forest.
It was laughter completely consumed by intellectual ecstasy and the madness of crossing forbidden boundaries, as if he was willing to endure even the leash of fear placed upon him.
"Yeah! Fuck, let's do it! In this fucking crazy world where Divine Power bursts out of a commoner swordsman's palm, what's the harm in blaspheming God a little! Let's see if my brain blows up first, or if that shitty church's formula gets ripped apart first!"
Listening to his insane laughter, I coldly tapped my mental abacus.
The bastard was perfectly hooked.
He had become my reliable accomplice, the most useful slave willing to rack his brains and stay up all night for my purpose.
But as Erden said, reverse-engineering God's power to rearrange the damaged brain structure was not something that could be finished in a day or two.
It would require the design of vast magical formulas, endless dissection of Divine Power, and hundreds of trials and errors.
That meant, for a long time to come—
every night, while Ines slept, I would have to sneak out beyond the barrier and risk my life acting as a 'meat shield' against magical beasts for this crazy heretic.
At the same time, I would have to gnaw away at my own heart to serve as his 'Divine Power test subject'—the beginning of a grueling, blood-draining double life.
'It doesn't matter.'
I securely fastened my blood-stained sword at my waist and looked up at the pitch-black night sky of the Academy.
Even if my heart gets torn to shreds.
Even if I become a monster that drenches itself in beast blood every night and climbs onto a lunatic's experiment table.
If I can return my lover, who was thrown into a garbage ditch and became an empty idiot clinging only to the sound of my heart, to her original brilliant form—
I would willingly put a thousand, ten thousand leashes around my own neck.
"Let's go, beast head."
Roughly grabbing the collar of the cackling Erden, I turned toward the barrier.